And That's the Way It Was

"Joseph, MaryEllen and Dorothy---Time to get up!" My mother would open the kitchen door and call these words up the back stairway.  We never had alarm clocks then: Ma was always awake.  She would call us for school  after my father left for work, always through  the front door.  We kids didn't drink coffee, but the smell wafted up the stairway when she opened the kitchen door, and it smelled like morning in the  house.  The coffee pot was tan enamel with green trim at the top.